Making a difference

It's amazing how much a story can influence you.

I was watching a dramatisation of Stephen Hawking's life played by Benedict Cumberbatch and seeing the story behind the brilliant mind of one of the greatest scientists of our time.

It left me with a profound feeling which grips me from time to time. I have to emulate that greatness. To get into physics I'd probably have to do some more A levels but I can do night classes so that'd be okay. I couldn't believe I was seriously thinking about it.

I had to take a step back. I'm never going to be the next Stephen Hawking even if I did go down that path. The desire still burned however -- I want to make a difference to the world.

My only talent is writing and I'm still a fledgling in that. The book is a powerful tool to help others but that'd have to be non-fiction. Fiction sits on a shelf in budget shops and newsagents that might as well be labelled "time pass" -- or "something to give your eyes a break from rotting away, staring at screens".

I try and think if fiction could do anything for us as a species and I think of great authors like Joseph Heller teaching me about the madness of war and that no matter how bleak the outlook is we can laugh and move on.

This is bed time philosophy though. Not the origins of the universe. The time has passed when a man could sit and rationalise about universal maxims with nothing more than his own mind and some pork pies.

I know there are science fiction writers that have paved the way for inventors through their broad imagination, but still the praise is empty and thought alone, again, only gets you so far.

Short of finding an interest to write non-fiction about it's hard to imagine what an average man can achieve in this world. Still, the world is a fascinating and interesting place for those who look and while my fiction may not explain the stars maybe if I keep writing well enough I may earn my place among them.

Then again, not with clichés like that I won't.

~Fraser